Contributed by Lauren Taylor 

In 1983, Leon Brown (15) and his brother Henry McCollum (19) were arrested on charges of raping and murdering 11-year-old Sabrina Buie. The two spent 31 years in prison after the police coerced them into a confession.

Not only did the police coerce them but they blatantly ignored their innocence and fabricated evidence against them. Sadly enough due to racial discrimination in this country, cases like this aren’t far and few between. In 2014, new DNA results exonerated them and implicated Roscoe Artis, a convict who committed a similar crime previously.

Due to the egregious police misconduct, on May 14th, 2021, Brown and McCollum were awarded $31 million, one million for every year they spent in prison as well as $13 million in damages.